This is an exploratory study of the psychological impact of a new community noise problem. Residents of a community in which a section of the Interstate Highway System is under construction will be interviewed before the highway is completed, shortly after traffic begins, and then again four to six months later. The investigation will focus on the emotional distress and behavioral disturbances which occur and the difficulties individuals experience in adjusting to the noise. In this work noise is viewed as a complex physical and psychosocial stimulus. Its effects will be interpreted within the framework of theories of psychological stress and coping. Questions asked during the interviews wwll concern attitudes toward the community, affective responses to the noise, andthe different methods of direct and intrapsychic coping people use. The goals of the project are to describe the initial short term effects of the noise, to describe level of the adjustment achieved several months later, to test and develop hypotheses about the factors which influence individual differences in sensitivity to noise, to test and develop hypotheses about the relationship between different coping mechanisms and eventual adaptation, and to contribute to the understanding of the significance of noise as an urban mental health problem.